U.S. Hits Chemical Agent Disposal Mark

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army announced today that it has eliminated 45 percent of the nation’s chemical weapons agent several months before an international treaty deadline (see GSN, April 27).

As of Monday, the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency had destroyed more than 13,775 tons of mustard agent and sarin and VX nerve agents, along with more than 1.6 million weapons and containers.  The total U.S. stockpile of chemical agent stood at nearly 30,000 tons when the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in 1997.

The U.S. envoy to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the treaty’s verification body, is expected to make a formal statement next week at the meeting of the OPCW Executive Council in The Hague.

“The U.S. chemical demilitarization program has met all the international treaty milestones we signed up to do,” Dale Ormond, acting agency director and deputy assistant Army secretary for chemical weapons elimination, said last week.  “I think that’s quite an accomplishment for a program that’s had a number of challenges, whether they be technical or financial or whatever.”

The treaty set several dates at which possessor states had to destroy select percentages of chemical agents on the way to elimination of their stockpiles.  It originally required the United States to hit the 45 percent mark in 2004.  Treaty nations agreed to grant an extension to Dec. 31 of this year after it became clear the Army could not meet the original schedule. 

“It certainly is a landmark and it certainly is much further along than the Russians are.  So I’m glad to hear we’re at that point,” said University of Delaware chemical engineering professor Stanley Sandler, who studied chemical weapons disposal methods for five years with the National Research Council.

Russia in April said it passed the 20 percent mark for disposal of its chemical agent stockpile, the world’s largest at more than 44,000 U.S. tons (see GSN, April 23).  Moscow was also the recipient of a schedule extension, giving it until the end of 2009 to meet the intermediate milestone.  Libya is the only other treaty state holding chemical weapons that has not yet reached the 45 percent point (see GSN, June 12).

The next U.S. milestone will be the complete elimination of the stockpile, which contains weapons dating back to 1945.  Despite receiving an extension for that deadline to April 29, 2012, U.S. officials have said they will probably not finish the job until 2023.

That delay has linked to two facilities that have yet to be built, and which are not under the aegis of the Chemical Materials Agency.

Ormond said he is hopeful his program will complete its work by the treaty deadline.  Pentagon estimates, though, indicate operations at some plants could extend several years beyond that date (see GSN, May 15, 2006).

“We’re still in the hunt to do that.  It’s going to be close at a couple of the sites … but it is achievable and we’re working diligently every day to do that,” he said.

The program encompasses two sites that have completed their work, four operating weapons incinerators and a working chemical neutralization plant, and the Nonstockpile Chemical Materiel Project charged with eliminating scattered weapons, chemical agent vials, test kits and other material outside the declared stockpile.  The agency receives the bulk of the money directed toward U.S. chemical agent disposal, roughly $1.2 billion annually.

Ormond acknowledged that the program has faced challenges — technical and otherwise — that have caused unanticipated schedule delays.  Small fires have ignited repeatedly during destruction of rockets at Umatilla, Ore. (see GSN, July 25, 2006).  Operations halted at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Utah for eight months to allow for extensive safety inspections after a worker was exposed to sarin.  Large carbon filters are likely to be required at Tooele and potentially additional plants to ensure that toxic emissions are not released during incineration of mustard agent that is contaminated with mercury.

Meeting the demands of heightened environmental regulations required modification of some systems and procedures, while fighting off lawsuits from opponents of weapons incineration has occasionally forced work stoppages, Ormond said.  He also noted U.S. lawmakers’ unwillingness at times to allocate money for operations until they see milestones met at other disposal plants.

When setting schedules, the framers of the Chemical Weapons Convention underestimated the problems that treaty states would face in eliminating their weapons, Ormond argued.

The Army could have pursued options that would have accelerated the pace of operations, said Paul Walker, Legacy Program director at the environmental organization Global Green USA.  Mustard agent stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot could have undergone chemical neutralization while another facility incinerated nerve agent, he said.  Disposal of nerve agent at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana could be finished by now, had the Army chosen to build on-site reactors for treating waste produced by chemical neutralization, rather than spending years trying to find an off-site treatment facility, he added  (see GSN, May 1).

“It’s always been a question of money vs. time, and the Pentagon has chosen to follow operations they’ve believed would be cheaper but slower,” Walker said by e-mail.  “If smarter decisions had been made, and more money spent up front, we’d have 60 percent or more destroyed today.”

The challenges of weapons disposal are likely to be even greater for the final two U.S. facilities, at Blue Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo., Sandler said.

Community opposition to burning weapons at those sites forced the Defense Department to seek a different technology, ultimately settling upon chemical neutralization.  Preparation of the facilities has subsequently been plagued by fluctuating funding pledges and demands for less-expensive designs that delayed progress (see GSN, March 2, 2005).

The relative youth of the technology means operations in Colorado and Kentucky are likely to begin slowly and with limited numbers of weapons, Sandler said.  There are certain to be troubles with the equipment, he said.

The U.S. military’s focus on other matters — an unspoken but clear reference to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq — is also likely in the immediate future to prevent additional resources from being directed toward speeding up the pace of work at the depots, Sandler said.

Total annual funding for the two facilities is likely to stand at about $300 million for the next few years, said Bill Pehlivanian, deputy program manager for the Pentagon’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program.

He expressed hope that the budget might increase to $400 to $500 million annually after fiscal 2010, at which point the program would be “deep into construction” of the plants.  Operations are scheduled to begin at both sites in 2014.

Increased funding could pull back the completion date of work at the neutralization facilities, Pehlivanian said.  It is hard to asses yet how much time might be saved.

“Certainly 2023 is a little further out than most people would like us to be finished,” he said.

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